Hi,
i read on the site that the kdl-apps repo as source for a kdl visualizer. So i checked it out and tried to build it. cmake complains that it needs an ACE_INCLUDE_DIR environment variable to be set (and a corresponding ACE_LIBRARIES). I could not find information regarding this ACE software at a quick glance..
So where do i find this ACE software and what is its purpose? Is it possible to build some apps (especially the viewer) without this dependency?
Regards,
Florian Schmidt
Building KDL apps - what is ACE?
On Tuesday October 21 2008 14:05:08 fschmidt@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de wrote:
> Hi,
>
> i read on the site that the kdl-apps repo as source for a kdl visualizer.
> So i checked it out and tried to build it. cmake complains that it needs an
> ACE_INCLUDE_DIR environment variable to be set (and a corresponding
> ACE_LIBRARIES). I could not find information regarding this ACE software at
> a quick glance..
>
> So where do i find this ACE software and what is its purpose? Is it
> possible to build some apps (especially the viewer) without this
> dependency?
ACE is a middleware, it is used to connect the viewer to some running application in OCL (ocl/viewer) but this isn't maintained anymore. note that the viewer in KDL-Apps is also no longer maintained.
There was a post of a new viewer using python and the python-bindings:
http://www9.in.tum.de/~kleinehe/roboview.html
Ruben
--
Ruben Smits <http://people.mech.kuleuven.be/~rsmits>
Robotics Research - Autonomous Compliant Motion <http://www.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/acm>
Division Production engineering, Machine design and Automation <http://www.mech.kuleuven.be/pma>
Department of Mechanical Engineering<http://www.mech.kuleuven.be>
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven<http://www.kuleuven.be>
Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm for more information.
Building KDL apps - what is ACE?
Ok, here's a new version [renamed and a bit worked over]:
This one includes coordinate axes (R, G, B -> X, Y, Z), rotational axes
(complementary colors of R. G, B) and a test app that uses the lib to
visualize the result of the inverse velocity solver for a 100-joint robot..
Regards,
Flo
Building KDL apps - what is ACE?
Ah well, noone seems to care. :(
Building KDL apps - what is ACE?
On Wednesday November 26 2008 11:35:14 fschmidt [..] ...
wrote:
> Ah well, noone seems to care. :(
Don't think this to fast, ;)
i checked your code and compiled it, and tried the example. It looks nice, but
the example is not really productive (the joints just keep moving) if you want
to show people what you can do, i suggest to create a more real robotic
example.
Do you have python bindings for this? (see PyQt)
Ruben
Building KDL apps - what is ACE?
Hi again,
Ruben Smits wrote:
> On Wednesday November 26 2008 11:35:14 fschmidt [..] ...
> wrote:
>> Ah well, noone seems to care. :(
>
> Don't think this to fast, ;)
Well, i do plead guilty of fishing for compliments with my latest post
in this thread. Seems to have worked, too ;)
> i checked your code and compiled it, and tried the example.
Great that it builds and runs for you. That is good news.. So much can
go wrong with a release that i'm always kind of surprised when i hear
that stuff works for other people, too ;)
> It looks nice, but
> the example is not really productive (the joints just keep moving) if you want
> to show people what you can do, i suggest to create a more real robotic
> example.
Basically the example was just there to show how [easy it is] to use the
QKDLChainViewer class and at the time i was playing with what happens in
a singular position, when the wished-for twist was not achievable. I
guess i could use resolved motion rate control to go to some target
positions or something similar. I agree that just using inverse velocity
kinematics with a constant twist is kinda boring. But hey, it moves ;)
> Do you have python bindings for this? (see PyQt)
Nope, not yet. I'll take a look. Depending on the effort that needs to
be put into this i will implement a python binding or not. Disclaimer:
I'm not a regular python user [has been a year or two since i last wrote
python code]. Do you maybe have some reading tips on how to go about this?
Regards,
Flo
Building KDL apps - what is ACE?
Ah drats, wrong link.. This one should work:
Regards,
Flo
Building KDL apps - what is ACE?
Ruben Smits wrote:
> There was a post of a new viewer using python and the python-bindings:
>
> http://www9.in.tum.de/~kleinehe/roboview.html
Hi, i just wanted to let you guys know that i wrote a [as of now]
_super_ simple Qt4 widget for visualization of a KDL chain.
Find it here:
This release is mainly for testing the packaging (autotools) and to find
fundamental problems early (release early, release often)..
There's a small test app included that shows how it's used (the test app
builds a six-segment chain and slowly increases the q of each joint).. A
pair of eyes looking over it at this early stage would be welcome as
it's easy to get confused with matrix memory-layout/multiplication
conventions used in OpenGL/KDL..
Right now the viewer only displays a simple white line segment for each
segment. The viewer widget allows to specify the pose [see
test/test_kdl_chain_viz.cc]...
Patches welcome for e.g. the navigation in the widget (n/a yet) and the
drawing of joint axes (n/a yet).. Also welcome would be ways to load a
geometry mesh per segment (n/a yet).. Let me know if you want to start
working on any of these so we can avoid duplicate effort. I will tackle
navigation next and then axis drawing..
I'm open to patches to build widgets for other GUI toolkits, too..
Patches will be attributed to the respective author in the to be created
README, etc :)
The code is licensed under GPL v2.0..
Regards,
Flo
P.S.: Ruben, i think you had html-code in your last email.. The forum
post looked totally garbled..
Building KDL apps - what is ACE?
Ruben Smits wrote:
> > So where do i find this ACE software and what is its purpose? Is it
>
> > possible to build some apps (especially the viewer) without this
>
> > dependency?
>
> ACE is a middleware, it is used to connect the viewer to some running
> application in OCL (ocl/viewer) but this isn't maintained anymore. note
> that the viewer in KDL-Apps is also no longer maintained.
>
> There was a post of a new viewer using python and the python-bindings:
>
> http://www9.in.tum.de/~kleinehe/roboview.html
>
> Ruben
Thanks a bunch for the information.
Regards,
Florian Schmidt
Building KDL apps - what is ACE?
ok, i just found out that one should be able to build the viewer itself in the corresponding subdir.